October 6, 2008

The Coveted Burp

I hate burping PK. Not because of the spit-ups that sometimes accompany her burps, but rather because it is so freaking difficult to get her to burp!!!

When she was first born, I tried burping her by sitting her on my lap and supporting her neck with one hand while patting her back with the other. Not only did she look like a sad little frog, this position made her squirmy, did not usually produce a burp, and more often than not made her barf out her food because I sometimes got the angle she used to sit on m lap wrong and it put pressure on her teeny diaphragm.

I soon gave up o the sitting down burp and moved to the over-the-shoulder burp. While I burp her I usually move my hand up her back as I pat it. This type of burp was definitely easier than the sitting down burping method and is my method of choice, namely because it produces some good (although sometimes infrequent) burps. Even though this is my method of choice, however, I can't seem to get her to burp as often as I'd like, which of course can be really frustrating because oftentimes she'll refuse to burp but actually should burp because the gas makes her cranky. I worry about putting her down for a nap after a burpless feeding. Who knows if she can end up gagging or something from spit-up as a result of not burping!

Today I tried a slight variation on the over-the-shoulder burp, courtesy of my sister-in-law. Basically, while PK is slung over my shoulder, I slowly yet firmly smack her mid-back while burping. This definitely seems to work better, so I think I'll stick with that.

1 comment:

Jade didn't always burp after a feed, but after the first few weeks, it didn't seem to matter much for her. When she *did* get gassy, something that worked really well for us was laying her tummy down on a forearm (head toward your elbow) and then using the other hand to gently rub the back. Sometimes we'd add some gentle bouncing or swaying (standing up), or sitting on an exercise ball. Even if it didn't get a burp, the motion and pressure seemed to soother her.

Welcome to PK Land!

PK Land is a blog about my experiences as a parent. It is a follow-up to my pregnancy blog, PK on the Way, which I wrote to document my pregnancy in the hopes of someday sharing it with my daughter. PK is short for "Potential Kid", which the hubby and I used to refer to the child that we might have in the future. We also referred to our unborn child as PK, as we didn't quite have a name picked out for her until she was born. Even though "PK" has an actual name (and her initials are not P.K.), I thought I'd keep up the anonymity (and save her future embarrassment) by continuing to use PK in this blog.